


moonlight (that sort of night)

by Anonymous



Category: Dexter (TV)
Genre: Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Drinking, F/F, Femslash, I Will Go Down With This Ship, this turned out sadder than I planned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24803020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: An extension of the scene of Maria with Ellen at the bar.S3EP9, "About Last Night"
Relationships: Maria LaGuerta/Ellen Wolf
Kudos: 3
Collections: Anon Works





	moonlight (that sort of night)

It’s a still, nostalgic sort of night, the type that is nearly time in reverse. It’s a night filled with shadows and echoes of the past, and Maria feels so very, very old. 

The light of the moon is watery and yellow, rendering every surface a mirror. She looks as composed as ever, a picture of a woman in power. She has a smooth face; wrinkles haven’t caught up to her yet. It’s the benefit of a good skincare regimen, she supposes. 

Her face is fresh, but she’s got a smoker’s soul. 

Ellen ages well, Maria thinks. The woman is shutting the door of her date’s car loudly, the woman a moving-picture of verve. The streetlight has settled into the crevices of her face, a countenance dusted in gold. 

(Once, in a moment of unusual candidity, Masuka had told her about a Kintsugi pot he had received after his grandfather’s death. Of course, he’d cracked a joke about ‘filling cracks’ afterwards, but LaGuerta had dissected too many people to not see the emotion in the memory.) 

Ellen Wolf is the Kintsugi woman, not afraid of her own fractures. Maria’s breath always catches a little around her. 

“Well, I guess I know why they’re called peace-officers.” Ellen says with a little huff of a laugh at a joke only she knows yet. “They’re so boring they’ll make a person want to rest in peace!” 

Maria laughs, and it is a shade less charming than her usual practiced and demure sort of sound. For the first time in a long while, she finds that she doesn’t really care.

It felt dangerous and unwise, to be this sort of Maria, the sort who didn’t care. She had done a number of dangerous and unwise things, her younger self. It’s a nostalgic sort of night, an eclipse of things long gone and those left wanting. 

This Maria Laguerta, dangerous and unwise with a loud laugh, follows Ellen Wolf into the bar. 

The bar is dark, dingy in the intimate way of a city made for spring-break. When Ellen flicks her hair away from her mouth to drink, the shadows catch on everything but her eyes, warm and bright like whiskey in a tumbler. 

Ellen’s hand meets her own, bold as always. Maria, the ever-unconquerable, lets it stake claim.

She has fire in her veins and dizziness in her brain, but her glass is full. 

“May I?” Ellen nods towards Maria’s drink with a quirk of her lips. Her voice, Maria thinks, carries a laugh, nestled along the words and meaning and sound. She has learned to make her voice a sort of steel, every word an alloy with an order in it’s chemistry. It’s a double-bladed instrument of control; even in the Miami heat, the inside of her feels cold. 

Maria raises an eyebrow. “It’s your treat.” 

Ellen grins, and even in the murkiness of the bar, she is radiant. The glass is tilted back, and Maria hasn’t tasted any alcohol yet tonight, but still she  _ drinks _ . 

The glass is passed, and tan knuckles kiss a dark wrist. Their marks are one on the rim of the glass, the oil of Maria’s lipstick over the dew of Ellen’s breath. 

Soon, the glass is empty, but for once, Maria is full, something close-to-bursting between her ribs. 

They leave before the place closes, the tables still-alive with people drinking dreams. A young couple take their place, all hands and skin and drinks with edible glitter sunk to the bottom. 

It’s the still sort of night that demands a moment to simply  _ be _ , and so they do, holding hands in the soft touch of the moon. 

The sidewalk overlooking the coast is deserted, a scene set for two. Maria rolls up the sleeves of her blazer and leans against the rail, feeling the pressure leave the soles of her heels. She can see Ellen’s face in the corner of her eye; the other woman is striking, even in the obscurity of night. She is the bittersweet shadow of a goddess in profile, an ancient Roman bust in flesh. 

Ellen’s voice splits the stillness of the night; 

“You know, you have  _ got _ to give me the regimen for your skin. I-” Her voice breaks, and Laguerta had never known that a voice could carry such a sweet laugh on its notes. The sky is black, and Ellen’s voice is a symphony, every emotion a clear instrument of their own. The other woman brings up her hand, quick and brash, and then stops an inch or so from the skin of Maria’s cheek, suddenly hesitant. 

Ellen Wolf is a woman who is audacious in the flippancy of her mannerisms, bold in things that don’t really matter. 

Her fingers are accepted with a Mona Lisa smile, nails just-brushing brown skin. Ellen lets out a little breathy giggle, and it is the opposite of her voice- it is a laugh which carries words with it. This laugh, Maria thinks, sounds an awful lot like ‘kiss me’. And so she does, soft and sweet. It’s short, only a brush of lips against lips, but still, both of their breaths are heavy. 

“See? Soft as a baby’s bottom.” Ellen says after a moment, and the words are a joke, but there is nothing facetious about the warmth of her tone. 

It is an old sort of night, the type of night that is already a memory before it has happened. Maria feels so very, very old, but for the first time, she doesn’t feel alone, and that is lifting an invisible weight from her back, so that it is very nearly enough to bear. 

“It’s all scar-tissue, if you know how to look.” Maria responds, melancholy and sweet. 

A moment passes as Ellen leans out over the rail like Maria had before, eyes on the horizon; in her gaze, the shimmering obsidian of the night-time sea touches the blue-black sheet of the sky. 

“I’m good at being justice for others.” Ellen says, and  _ I could be blind _ is what she means. 

Maria joins her, perched light over the mirror of the sea. 

“What if I want to be seen?” she asks the other woman, and they both smile, little close-lipped quirks that carry something too heavy to lift. 

“I have off-hours too.” Ellen provides, her voice caught. Neither of them are crying, but their voices carry the stuff of tears. 

They lean out over the rail, shoulder-to-shoulder. For a moment, the only sound is their own breaths mixed with the soft, sound whisper of the waves. 

“My place?” Maria offers, bold and dangerous. Ellen agrees with a laugh of a voice, and to Maria’s car they go, cupped in the darkness of a still, nostalgic sort of night. 


End file.
